California Court Records

California Court Records Search

The Supreme Court, Superior Courts, and the Court of Appeal of California are the important courts which keep California court records of all types. The Supreme Court acts as appellate court statewide. It has a Family History Library with copies of defendant and plaintiff indexes for documents of cases from the supreme court from the year 1850 to 1930. The Court of Appeal works as an intermediate appellate court for the entire state.

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The Superior Courts hold countrywide jurisdiction for all criminal and civil cases including juvenile and criminal cases. The Superior courts appeals from municipal courts and citywide justice courts. In the state of California, it is these Superior Courts that have replaced District Courts. They hold court record attachments for different counties. The original court documents are stored in different city courthouses and counties. You can find indexes and records at the State Archives of California for older information.

Official California Court Records

You can always come into the California courthouses and have the staff do a search, for which you will need to provide thecase number, case title, and case name of the documents that have been requested. You have to also provide the file date of the documents as well. If you think you cannot provide all of these particulars, you will have to pay a ‘search fee’. If the clerk at the courthouse hands you a copy of the case record you were looking for, it will cost you $0.50.

All copies of pleadings must be obtained at a courthouse where a case was filed. You can do this in person or via mailing on request, you must also provide a self addressed and stamped envelope along with it so that the documents can be sent back to you.

California Court Records By Mail

If you request the case record copies to be sent to you by mail, you must make your check payable to the Superior Court. If you do not know the fee, you can write a check where you can leave out the amount part blank. You must also indicate in the dollar section exactly how much amount should not be exceeded from. This depends on the cost you anticipate will be charged. A few other things that you must provide include full names of parties, the titles of the documents that you have requested, and the date on which these particular documents were filed, only if you know the date. It makes the process efficient and there are better chances of finding the records you are looking for.

California Court Record Transcripts

Either an electronic tape is used to record the proceedings of the court, or a court reporter recorded them. In any case depending on the recording of a specific proceeding, you can request either a copy or a paper transcript of an electronic recording.